People are complaining about suspicious calls regarding medical alert systems nationwide, including in the Lehigh Valley.

People are complaining about suspicious calls regarding medical alert systems nationwide, including in the Lehigh Valley.

Many senior citizens fear they will fall or suffer a medical emergency and not be able to reach a phone to call for help, and authorities are warning that scammers are playing off those fears.

Suspicious calls are being placed to seniors nationwide telling them they can get a free medical alert device.

Several people in the Lehigh Valley have received the calls, including Sandy Strauss of North Whitehall Township. He told me he's had at least five automated calls over the past few weeks.

The intention of these calls isn't always clear, though attorneys general and Better Business Bureau chapters in several states have issued recent warnings describing the calls as a scam.

Several of the warnings say the intention is to obtain your personal information or to get you to pay a monthly fee for your alarm to be monitored, though I can't say for certain that applies to the calls Strauss received.

But they sure sound fishy.

Strauss saved one on his answering machine so I could listen to it. It doesn't mention the company's name, or leave a number to call back. All Strauss was prompted to do was "press 1" to accept delivery or "press 5" to decline.

The automated calls said he was being contacted to schedule delivery of his "medical alert system."

"It's the 'fallen-and-I-can't-get-up' type of system you've seen on TV," the call said. "Looks like this system's been recommended by thousands of hospitals and medical professionals."

The male caller stresses several times that the system, including shipping, already has been paid for and hints that someone referred him as needing one.

"Looks like you are getting the system because either yourself, a friend, a family member or maybe even someone you know has experienced a fall in the past," the caller says.

Strauss told me he knows of no relative or friend who signed him up. And he doubts it's free.

"You know and I know that there's a monitoring fee," said Strauss, 74.

When he interrupted one of the automated calls last week and spoke with a rep, Strauss said he was told he would get a "senior safety" system. The rep didn't say there'd be a cost and didn't ask for payment information but he did ask for Strauss' address, which he refused to provide.

The rep wouldn't give Strauss a phone number where he could call back, which is another reason to be suspicious of the call. The calls he got came from the 724 area code in Pittsburgh and the 610 area code locally.

I wasn't able to reach anyone at either number. The Better Business Bureau says the calls appear to be local, but numbers can be misrepresented through caller-ID "spoofing."

Ray Ball of Coopersburg told me he's received the same type of calls.

"I always hang up on it," Ball, 84, said.

That's smart because there's no telling exactly what the caller is after. Ball suspects that if he "accepts" the shipment, he'll get a bill later.

The attorney general's office in New York said in a warning last week that callers using the names "Senior Medical Alert" or "Senior Medical Advisors" have attempted to get billing information to charge people $35 monthly for alleged "monitoring" services.

Ball told me he reported the calls to the Pennsylvania attorney general's office, which told me it couldn't confirm or deny that it was investigating.

Some calls, though not the one Strauss received, are improperly using the brand name Life Alert, whose well-known commercials feature an elderly woman in trouble who calls out, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!"

But Life Alert does not make telemarketing calls, said Olga Vlassova, vice president of marketing for the Los Angeles area company.

She said the calls are making Life Alert "look really bad" and have misled people into thinking they were buying its product. Life Alert sued two competitors earlier this month, alleging they are making misleading telemarketing calls using its trademarked tag line.

There are several versions of the call, according to the various warnings from attorneys general and the Better Business Bureau. Some identify the company and say there will be a cost, while others don't. Some callers have foreign accents. When people ask for basic information about the company as Strauss did, they are ignored or even hung up on.

That's a red flag, said Andy Goode, regional vice president for the Better Business Bureau of Metro Washington D.C. and Eastern Pennsylvania.

"A legitimate company's going to be more open," Goode told me. "If you want them to send you information, they're going to send you information."

If you get a call like this, ignore it, though I'd like to hear your story. If you believe you need a medical alert device, shop around.

The Watchdog is published Thursdays and Sundays. Contact me by email at watchdog@mcall.com, by phone at 610-841-2364 (ADOG), by fax at 610-820-6693, or by mail at The Morning Call, 101 N. Sixth St., Allentown, PA, 18101. Follow me on Twitter at mcwatchdog and on Facebook at Morning Call Watchdog.